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Wayne.B

On Tue, 16 Jun 2009 19:35:32 -0400, wrote:

You couldn't be more wrong. LIS gets compact but very powerful cells
all summer long. Almost daily. We call them "Little Fists of Fury".
They are spectacular. Usually there is space between them that you can
squeeze through if you have enough warning before they reach you.

The really bad guys on LIS (and New England) in my experience are the
slow moving cold fronts that come down from the north west in July and
August. They come at you like a white squall and there are *no* gaps
to squeeze through. We first experienced one in the summer of 1975 on
an evening cruise from Mystic to Block Island. The wind blew 50 kts
plus for over half an hour creating blinding spray and really large
seas in no time at all. When we pulled into Great Salt Pond after
the storm, at least half of the boats had broken loose and were agound
on the edge of the pond. The same front spawned a tornado 30 miles
east at Cuttyhunk with a lot of damage there also.

Weather forecasting has gotten a lot better since then but it's still
possible to get "caught out" if you are offshore with no good place to
duck in to.